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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26699845">Wireless Fidelity</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/khilari/pseuds/Iztarshi'>Iztarshi (khilari)</a>, <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunaTactics/pseuds/lunaTactics'>lunaTactics</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>A Hand To Hold [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Procedures, SecUnit OCs</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 05:34:27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,401</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26699845</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/khilari/pseuds/Iztarshi, https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunaTactics/pseuds/lunaTactics</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>As the lone Combat SecUnit on a crew of rogue units, getting hurt fighting the crew's enemies is typical. But it's different when MedUnit gets involved.</p><p> </p><p>  <i>I always forget we’re exactly the same size, somehow.</i></p><p> </p><p>As the doctor to a crew of rogues, MedUnit has a lot of experience putting other SecUnits back together. Somehow it’s different when it’s Combat.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Combat SecUnit &amp; MedUnit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>A Hand To Hold [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1992310</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>121</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Rogues and Rampancy</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Wireless Fidelity</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ship has the ramp already down when we reach it. Su pings Combat through the feed, signalling that we’re done and ready to leave. Clunker, already moving up the ramp supporting the humanform bot we’d just rescued from being scrapped, doesn’t pause but I can feel it hanging in the feed waiting for an affirmative. Combat’s mind is crystal, sharp-edges and focus, and it lets the ping slide off it with not much more than momentary irritation. Even when I follow up the ping myself.</p><p>It’s the only one of us left in danger now, but I can’t expect it to care about that. “Fuck,” I say. “Get the client in. I’m going back.”</p><p>The fight going on when I rush back into the lobby is our Combat SecUnit against their remaining CombatBot. The CombatBot is down to two arms, but Combat’s down to one and a half. </p><p>I slam into the feed, using sheer frustration to make my presence bigger. <i>Combat, get out here NOW.</i></p><p><i>But I’m winning.</i> It whines like a toddler, even as it executes a perfect flip, bounces off the wall and slams its feet into the CombatBot’s head.</p><p><i>We got the client, we’ve already won.</i> I yank at Combat through the feed, knowing I don’t have any real control. Running out and trying to grab it physically would just get both of us swatted by an angry CombatBot. <i>I’m the one that’s going to have to put your fucking arm back on, so get out here and don’t make my life more difficult by losing the other one.</i></p><p>Combat ignores me in favour of firing one of its larger projectile weapons right into the CombatBot’s wrist joint. It’s definitely winning on the arm front now, but the CombatBot throws it to the ground and it leaves splashes of red where it lands. SecUnits need that inside them. I’m prepping wound sealant; if it won’t get out of there at least I can try to make sure it survives until the CombatBot’s dead or the others come back to see what’s taking us this long.</p><p>It hasn’t been that long. Not with how fast Combat moves.</p><p>I’m only a regular SecUnit so I don’t move quite as fast, but I still make it across the compound to Combat’s side quickly enough that the CombatBot doesn’t get in more than a few hits when it turns and strafes me. I drop down next to Combat and spray wound sealant all over its chest in a ragged patch. The remains of its armour are making the wound sealant peel off at the edges, but at least for now it’s not bleeding.</p><p>The CombatBot’s remaining hand comes down, some kind of chainsaw attachment out for mangling impertinent SecUnits. I roll backwards, expecting Combat to go the other way, or to dive forward. Instead, when the hand follows me, so does Combat, and it’s Combat’s back that takes the brunt of the blow. I grab its body as it falls forwards, pick it up like I'm holding a client, and run.</p><p>It doesn’t actually stay unconscious for long, but at least it doesn’t complain about us leaving the fight.</p><p>“If you’d just done what I said we’d both have been fine,” I snap, as if it’s blamed me.</p><p>*</p><p>That’s unfair, I want to say to MedUnit. If MedUnit had stayed out of the way I could have gotten the CombatBot within the next few decision cycles. Spray or no spray, I could have shot out the CombatBot’s last arm in the moment that MedUnit was rolling away.</p><p>But I stay silent, because I didn’t. I don’t know why I decided to take that blow for MedUnit, why it mattered so much to me in that moment that it overrode my strategic thinking. I don’t say to it that I think it might be more dangerous to me than the others.</p><p>Instead, I half-lever myself up its back with the remains of one arm, where I am draped upside-down and uncomfortable, and point my projectile weapon down the hall behind it, where the CombatBot is still pursuing us. I can’t fucking aim like this, not at 48% performance reliability and folded over another SecUnit’s shoulder, but I give that Bot something to think about. I can’t win, but we can get back to Ship in no fewer pieces than we already are. </p><p>*</p><p>Su is still waiting on the ramp when we arrive and pings me with, <i>Unit assistance needed?</i></p><p>“No,” I say, and wonder whether I should have used the feed. I prefer talking but not all of the crew are comfortable with that. “I just need the MedBay. Was anyone else hurt?”</p><p>“The client,” it says. “It’s in engineering. Medbay’s free.”</p><p>“Thank you,” I say. Since few of my patients are fully organic I do know some engineering, but the client is with experts so I needn’t worry. “And thanks for waiting for us.”</p><p>Combat’s annoyed that I’m standing around chatting with it bleeding and embarrassed on my shoulder, and it has a point. I hurry in.</p><p>*</p><p>Did I make a mistake? That decision cost me the kill. Technically, I fulfilled my mission objective: distract the CombatBots. I didn’t need to win, and nobody that I answer to now gives a shit about my killcount. I’m trying to hold onto that, but I can’t escape the thought that I messed up, that I shouldn’t have put protecting another SecUnit before my objective. </p><p>When I realize we’ve gotten to Ship and that one of the others was there, I freeze up. While MedUnit is talking, I can’t help but think this is one of those times when I failed a mission objective and Handler was furious at me. Handler never liked having to pick up my pieces when I fucked up.</p><p>Handler is gone, I tell myself. It’s just MedUnit that I sync with now, and its priorities are all different. For one thing, it doesn’t hesitate to enter combat with me, put itself in harm’s way with me. </p><p>Still. I  feel like I fucked up, somewhere, and I hate that.</p><p>*</p><p>Our MedSystem’s not exactly state-of-the-art. I had to download a bunch of stuff for dealing with augments and then tweak it to recognise SecUnit biology with help from Ship, who’s better at coding than me, especially coding things plugged into it like the MedSystem is, but worse at biology.</p><p>Right now I put Combat down on the bed as gently as I can manage and engage the MedSystem. I also grab an IV. IVs do work on SecUnits, as long as all the veins are intact between the place you’re injecting and all the places you want it to reach. Also as long as our veins don’t recognise a foreign substance and section off the part it’s injected into. Fortunately, there’s a way around that. I pull Combat’s suit skin back and plug the jury-rigged connector into the resupply port.</p><p>Combat looks smaller, half out of its armour and lying there, jaw loosening a little as the anxiolytic in the mix kicks in. I always forget we’re exactly the same size, somehow. Combat SecUnits are scarier than the regular kind, but they’re not bigger.</p><p>“I’m going to look at your arm,” I say, taking Combat’s damaged one in my hand. From about halfway down the forearm the support structure’s visible and mangled, the hand barely there at all. It’s the kind of thing a cubicle could fix, no problem. We have to use more primitive solutions. “I’m going to have to take it off,” I say. “Only to the elbow. I’ve got a new arm frame in storage.”</p><p>"Okay," it says.

</p><p>“Have you turned your pain receptors all the way down?” I ask when I return with the arm frame. Combat gives me an incredulous look, offended that I’m acting like this is new to it.</p><p>“I’ll take that as a yes,” I say.</p><p>It’s hard to knock a SecUnit out and harder still to keep us knocked out; we cycle back online once our performance reliability comes back up. In battle that’s a good thing. Medically, it means it’s actually less pleasant to repeatedly crash during surgery than to stay awake and numb.</p><p>Unfortunately, SecUnits are really bad at accepting the “numb” part. When I’m treating a ComfortUnit I can ask them to turn their pain sensors down all the way and they’ll do it. When it’s a SecUnit they turn them just far enough to make the pain bearable, used to being careful not to lose feeling when they might need to act. The fact that I’m about to perform surgery and it will be hurting a whole lot worse in a minute is often lost on them.</p><p>This is why I double check.</p><p>*</p><p>I pause my review of mission performance analysis when MedUnit touches my mangled arm. It’s the kind of post-mission thing that would have made me flip out, back before I lost Handler and my governor module was hacked, if it weren’t for the anxiolytics and the fact that MedUnit is so gentle.</p><p>I can feel it on the feed still, but MedUnit is mostly withdrawn now, focused nearly completely on the physical reality of my injuries. It’s lonely without it on the feed, but what it’s doing is weirdly comforting too. MedUnit does this- talks out loud, voice low and calm- whenever someone's hurt, treating them the way it probably used to treat human clients. </p><p>I’m not sure if MedUnit is paying enough attention to the feed to notice my cues, so when I assent to the surgery, it’s also out loud. But I don’t really care about the arm. I just want to know that I won, that I did good, that I didn’t fuck up, and it takes everything I have not to let that bleed into the feed. MedUnit is not my Handler (Handler is gone) and it doesn't need to know about this.</p><p>It asks me, out loud again so I come back to it and away from spiraling thoughts, if I turned my fucking pain receptors down. I turn my eyes to its face, hovering over mine, and just stare. I’m not that new to this!</p><p>(Okay, admittedly the first time MedUnit operated on me with a sedative mix, I missed the part about turning down my pain sensors. The drug it was using on me can regulate pain from SecUnits' organic parts even when our other systems are unable to, but it needs systems settings tuned down first. I spent a subjective forever recalibrating my fucked up haptic calibrations afterwards.)</p><p>It must guess what I was thinking, or maybe it’s just thinking about that first-attempt fiasco too. Its mouth presses together at a funny angle, and it says, "I'll take that as a yes.”</p><p>*</p><p>Combat’s got a lot of experience seeing itself cut open, but it does choose to look away as I make the incision in its arm. It’s a delicate job, I want to preserve as much of the muscle as possible while getting to the elbow joint. The MedSystem can regrow it, but it’s easier if it doesn’t have to do so from scratch.</p><p>I spread the muscle out from the cut I’m making, to each side of the bone, and I carefully sever the ligaments at the joint. Disarticulating the elbow itself doesn’t require any more cuts, but I want to be careful not to damage anything at the interface. Then I can lift the forearm away, damaged flesh still clinging to the hand and wrist and then slick synthetic bone to the elbow. I set the forearm in a tray and put the new arm-frame through the antiseptic field before putting it in place. I pull the muscles I managed to save back around it and hold them in place with a few stitches.</p><p>“It’s done,” I say. “The MedSystem can handle the rest.”</p><p>*</p><p>I keep my face turned away from MedUnit, where it’s still half-bent over my scrapped arm. With my pain sensors turned all the way down, I can barely feel anything over there. Reflexively, I try to move my arm, mapping in my spatial awareness where the new limb should grip and relax by my side. </p><p>Wait, something’s not matching up.</p><p>*</p><p>Humans have something called a phantom limb, where their body believes there’s still a limb there obeying commands to move. SecUnits have a different problem.</p><p>The arm in the tray twitches, hand clenching and unclenching, while the one newly attached to Combat lies still. It pushes frustration at me through the feed, tinged with fear.</p><p>“That’s normal,” I say, quickly. “You’re not supposed to be trying to move your arm before the muscle’s regrown. Stay still while I get the damaged part out of range.”</p><p>Our extremities need to function even when there’s damage between them and our core. Especially hands. So in a sense a SecUnit’s skeleton is a bunch of extremely short-range drones. It’s not something we’re usually aware of, and you’d have to be really desperate to try to make use of it, but that’s what it is. The extremely short range part is important right now. I can solve half the problem just by taking the amputated limb to the other end of the medical bay.</p><p>When I get back the new arm is twitching, fingers flexing jerkily, while the MedSystem tries to grow the flesh back.</p><p>“I told you to stay still,” I say, pulling a chair over and sitting down by the bed.</p><p>“It’s not moving right,” Combat tells me.</p><p>“We can fix that more easily once it’s done,” I say. “It’s not a physical problem, it’s just a matter of integration with your system. I promise.”</p><p>Combat frowns and goes still, the stillness of a SecUnit on standby. I appreciate it, but its levels are far too elevated to actually relax. It hangs off me in the feed instead, restless and unhappy in a way that doesn’t seem to be about the arm, although it’s not helping. Fortunately, I’m feeling much better for having Combat in one piece again, and have some calm to spare.</p><p>“Tell me what happened during the mission,” I say, mostly to distract it. That helps, a lot more than I thought it would, and I’m not sure why.</p><p>The report Combat composes and drops into the feed is clear and concise, a list of tactical decisions made in order to fulfil mission parameters. I could reconstruct today’s mission from it, and I do, running a simulation from the string of coordinates and environmental factors. The report stops when I arrive on the scene, I guess Combat figured I knew about that bit.</p><p>*</p><p>When MedUnit appeared on the scene of the battle, I was yanked out of my combat focus, out of that tactical tunnel vision and its field of data points like brilliant constellations. The situation had changed: there were more factors to worry about, and the fact that I’d lost my arm didn’t feel like something ignorable anymore.</p><p><i>But I’m winning,</i> I told it. And I had been. But with MedUnit on the scene the situation suddenly felt desperate: what would happen if I couldn’t kill the remaining CombatBot fast enough? It would definitely kill me if it could. It would kill MedUnit, who was right there, and then what would I do- ?</p><p>I don’t send MedUnit this part of my mission report.</p><p>*</p><p>I rerun a few bits. With only four of us on the mission today we’d sent Combat up against two CombatBots alone, although the objective hadn’t been to kill them so much as distract them. Killing had been an optional extra for if it found an opportunity. Combat had found its opportunity with the first one, but there had been a few split second moments where it nearly wound up with a head missing instead of an arm.</p><p>I resolve to talk to the Captain about the danger we’d put it in and Combat pulls away from me in the feed, leaving a startling emptiness after it was so close a moment ago.</p><p>“We ask too much of you,” I say.</p><p>“I fulfilled my mission,” it says pointedly to the ceiling.</p><p>“You did.” Combat likes missions. I’m probably upsetting it by suggesting it should have less of them, or less exciting ones, or whatever it thinks I’m suggesting. “Sorry.”</p><p>We’re both silent for a while. I change the IV bag and dispose of the amputated arm. Combat sulks, but stays still.</p><p>Once the muscle and skin’s finished regrowing I power down the MedSystem and remove the IV.</p><p>“Turn your pain receptors back up a bit,” I say.</p><p>Combat turns them back up higher than I meant. It won’t hurt the process, might even help, but I can feel its pain bleeding through the feed. That’s Combat’s choice, though. With the surgery over the pain at least won’t get any worse, I’m not going to fight with it about what it can bear.</p><p>I put my hands on its arm and run them lightly up and down the skin before pressing a bit more firmly. The organic parts of the body know where the new arm is, especially with the anaesthetic starting to cycle out of Combat’s system. It’s also reassuring to me, personally, to feel the muscles and veins back where they’re meant to be, even though I can see the internal scans through MedSystem and already knew that.</p><p>I run my hands down to Combat’s wrist and then wrap them around its fingers. “Squeeze my hand,” I say. I’ve put my temperature up because the point is sensation, and it makes Combat’s perfectly normal SecUnit temperature feel cold.</p><p>It does, a good firm grip, and I squeeze back. That’s not part of the procedure. I let go, leave one of my hands underneath its, and say, “Now wriggle your fingers.”</p><p>We go through some exercises until both of us are sure the new limb is working properly. Combat’s performance reliability is coming back up, too.</p><p>*</p><p>Is this the way SecUnits are supposed to treat their clients? Or how ComfortUnits are supposed to treat theirs? I've never had a client so I'm not sure, but probably not, right? This is something special that MedUnit does, and all its clients- its patients- should count ourselves lucky. </p><p>I cranked my pain sensors up this high because I wanted to be sure, absolutely sure, that my arm is what and where I think it is and that I haven't fucked up and lost a pretty critical piece of what makes me useful. So I can feel every nerve, every seam and stitch in my arm, when MedUnit's warm hands press into the skin of it. I can feel in minute detail the way our fingers slot against each other when I squeeze its hand. And when it squeezes back, I can <i>feel</i> that it's here and that it cares, no feed connection necessary. </p><p>It's funny to think of myself being treated like a human client. I’ve never had one before- my job has always been to eliminate targets or achieve a clear objective, not protect anyone. Safety and care don’t take priority over the objective. But when MedUnit treats me like this, it feels like it matters that I was hurt and not just that I’ll be functional. Oh, no wonder it’s so dangerous to me. How can I be a war machine if the pain matters? </p><p>*</p><p>“There, you’re good,” I tell Combat, letting go. “You should run a recharge cycle and diagnostic before you get up. It will clear your system of pain and fear chemicals, purge the residual anaesthetic, and complete the integration of the internal frame.”</p><p>I clean up while Combat runs its recharge cycle, but I’m watching it. Through the feed, through MedSystem’s feed and through the cameras. Like earlier I’m struck with the thought that it looks smaller. I want to protect it, but that’s not new, that’s how I wound up with a Combat SecUnit in my life in the first place. What I never expected was that it might reciprocate. I don’t know how to feel about that. Anxious. Reassured. Confused.</p><p>I should run a recharge cycle myself, my own levels aren’t great and I used a lot of energy earlier. But I’ll wait until Combat’s finished, just in case.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks for reading!</p><p>This fic developed from conversations on the Murderbot Discord about rogue units heisting freedom for other units, tabletop rpgs about space scoundrels, and SecUnit OCs. MedUnit is the creation of Iztarshi, and Combat SecUnit appeared in <i>my enemy, bright star dancing</i>. Feel free to ask us about them, or about the rest of the crew! There's an open vista of potential here, and everyone should get in on making up SecUnit OCs, it's incredibly fun.</p><p>Big kudos to Anrea for beta-reading and helping us clear up inconsistencies, as well as just providing excellent commentary for all parts of the fic! ;)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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